Prophetic Vision, Spring 2021, #99, Christ in us!

David Hathaway

My father always used to tell me the most spiritual book in the New Testament is Ephesians, and what I want to say to you will bring a spirit of joy and blessing and thanksgiving – which is needed very much at this time! Paul begins his letter saying, ‘Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the Will of God.’ This is an amazing thought: to replace Judas, the eleven cast lots, but the one who realistically replaced Judas was Paul – an apostle of Jesus Christ BY THE WILL OF GOD, rather than by the choice of man.

Paul continues his letter, v3, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ’! Jesus’ WHOLE message was about the Kingdom of God. As I write, there has just been an American election, in Britain we’re going through Brexit – but we need to be reminded that the message of Jesus was focused on the coming Kingdom, the blessing of the Kingdom! Not the kingdoms of this world! Jesus said, “My Kingdom is NOT of this world!” It’s a heavenly Kingdom. And Paul is reminding us that God has already blessed us with spiritual blessings in heavenly places. As we experience the blessing and the love of Jesus through our relationship with Him in our hearts, that translates us into a spiritual, heavenly place – even while we’re still here!

It’s true! I’m moved with the sense of the wonderful relationship we have with Jesus, how strong and how powerful and precious that is! If we understand what Paul is saying, our spiritual blessing is not through ‘Church’, through ceremonies or formalities – our real spiritual blessing is ONLY in Jesus Christ!

We read on in v4, God chose us in Christ – BEFORE the foundation of the world! That we should be holy before Him in love, having ‘predestined’ us to be adopted by Jesus Christ, as children of God Himself, according to the good pleasure of His Will. This is remarkable! We were chosen BEFORE the world began! Jesus Himself is referred to as the ‘Lamb slain from BEFORE the foundation of the world’! 1 Peter 1:18-20, Revelation 13:8. Only God, as a Heavenly Father, could make a way of escape BEFORE we commit the offence! It gives me such a sense of joy and blessing! BEFORE we sinned, the way of salvation was made!

BEFORE I was put in prison in 1972 by the communists, God had ALREADY made the way of escape! We have to understand the foreknowledge of God! BE- FORE we were born, when we were in our mother’s womb, God had foreordained a plan and a purpose for our lives!

To most people what happens to us and around us is by accident, or by chance. Maybe we don’t understand why. But God does. When we look at the idea of ‘predestination’ we have to be a little bit careful. Some misinterpret it to believe that God has predestined us, either to be saved, or to be lost, that He has decided, rather than us, whether we become a Christian or not... But this is how my father described predestination to me: it’s like a father on a cliff top having a wonderful time with his son, kicking a football – but now the ball is going towards the edge of the cliff, and the young boy, in his lack of knowledge, is running to save the ball – but the father is crying out “Stop!!!” – because he knows, if his son follows that ball, he will fall off the cliff! The father hasn’t ‘predestined’ the son to fall off the cliff, he’s seeking to stop what he knows in advance will happen! God has not ordained that you fall off that cliff! But He knows that if you carry on in your present way you will! He’s doing everything in His Power to stop you!!!

Paul is saying here in vv4-5, that God has prepared and chosen us from the very beginning! This makes me so full of wonder and blessing when I think about it – when we look at the sin of the world and the corruption, and the battles between governments – I’ve just been watching a documentary series on ‘Hitler’s War’ and the terrible things that were done – when you look at all the terrible things in history – God DIDN’T PREORDAIN that this would happen. But He prepared, IN ADVANCE, the Glory of the Kingdom that is to come! From the beginning God saw the desperate need!

We can’t see this future, we live one day at a time. But what I love, as believers, is the certainty that we have, our confidence in God. I cannot overemphasise the peace that I have, and the peace that you should have – and this peace is based on God’s foreknowledge! God knew before I was born what would be happening in my life, that I would become the evangelist, and I can look back on the things that led me in this direction. God was and is in control! Our confidence comes from His foreknowledge!

What is clear from Paul here, is that everything comes from and is dependent on – not ‘Church’, an organisation – but on Jesus! The person of Jesus Christ! All our hope, all our glory – everything is through Christ! Personal experience, personal relationship with Jesus Christ! Church is ‘collective’. Yes, we need the collective support, thank God for the Church, which is the Bride of Christ! But each one of us within that ‘collective’ is an individual. It’s as an individual, through the personal relationship we have with Christ – that we’re predestinated, v5, to be adopted, to be the children of God! It’s by JESUS CHRIST we’re accepted in the Beloved, by the Glory of His Grace, v6! According to the pleasure of His Will! It was His Love, His choice! We have, v7 says, redemption through His Blood, the forgiveness of sins – according to the riches of His Grace! He has abounded to us all wisdom and prudence, making known to us the (previously unknown) mystery of His Will, of His good pleasure, that in the dispensation of the fullness of time (still in the future), He might gather together ALL THINGS IN CHRIST – vv8-10 – AND MAKE US ONE IN HIM!

Paul continues in v11 to speak of the ‘inheritance’ we have received in Christ, being predestinated according to the Purpose of Him who works all things according to His Will! In other words, God ALWAYS INTENDED, from the beginning, from the very foundation of the world, before God created Heaven and earth, God had ALREADY PLANNED – ANOTHER KINGDOM! A far more glorious world! Here is only our training school, our preparation... Jesus taught us that, for what we do, we will receive a reward! There are rewards in the Kingdom of God based on our faithfulness here on earth!

Our whole life experience is looking forward to something future! The Christian life you have at the moment is not the end, it’s only the beginning. What we have down here is not the whole Glory of Salvation, it’s not the whole Glory of what we have in Christ – it’s just a foretaste, a glimpse into the future of what will be ours!

Paul writes in vv12-13, God has chosen us to be the ‘praise of His Glory’, we who first trusted – IN CHRIST! All of this is coming because of our trust IN CHRIST! What Paul is doing in this letter is turning things away from ‘formality’. Paul, of all men, so learned and trained in the Jewish religion as a Pharisee in the highest school, can now see beyond religion – that Jesus Christ transcends all earthly religion, all earthly concepts – Jesus Christ is the true centre of the Church, the Head! Christ whom God raised from the dead and set at His own Right Hand in the Heavenly Places, far ABOVE ALL principalities, power, might and dominion, ABOVE EVERY name that is named, not only in this world, but in the spiritual world that is to come, vv20-21. Christ is the Head, He’s ABOVE ALL OTHER authority – even governments – ABOVE ALL principalities, ALL powers, ALL might, ALL dominion and ABOVE every single name – pop idols, world powers – CHRIST IS GREATER!

In this world, the highest Authority, the highest Power, the highest Name – is JESUS! He is the Centre, He is the Glory – and in Him, we are already partakers of the heavenly blessings! Look back at v3! Paul writes, Jesus Christ has blessed us HERE with spiritual blessings in heavenly places – already – by faith, by trusting in Him! We’re already experiencing the Glory – we can and should do! We don’t have to wait until we get to Heaven. Too many say, oh when we get to Heaven...

Yes, I know, but live and experience it now! Today. Whether you are under Covid, under persecution, whatever is going on in your life, we must realise that, as we trust in Christ, we transcend... we see and go beyond...

What kept me sane in that communist prison? When the other prisoners around me said everyone develops the ‘prison shake’, I didn’t. Why? Because even in the darkness of that prison I could experience the Presence of God. There was one day when the Glory of God came so visibly and powerfully into my prison cell, that I could hear as it were the Angels in Heaven, as if I were taken up out of that prison and translated into the Glory of Heaven. The most wonderful experience in my whole life was not in Church, but in that prison when the Glory of God transcended ALL and became ABOVE everything else! I look back and thank God for that day, a foretaste of the Glory we will have! When we put our trust – implicitly – in Christ!

Look beyond your suffering, your sickness, your pain, beyond the weakness of the flesh. I want you to begin to live in anticipation of the Glory that is to come. When I came out of that communist prison with my experience of that Glory, I knew that there is something far more than anything the world can offer. Everything the world offers is transient, lasts for a time and then it’s gone. I feel so sorry for people whose idea of a good night out is to get so drunk that they lose consciousness, their only joy, their only happiness appears to be when they lose touch with the reality of what surrounds them. No, that’s not the way out. The joke in Russia, during the worst times under communism, was that the quickest and only way out was a bottle of vodka. No, no! Our joy is in Christ, this transcends everything else, the Glory is before us!

This is what Paul is trying to share with us in this letter. In vv17-19 he prays that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of Glory, would give to us the spirit of wisdom and revelation, that the eyes of our understanding could be enlightened, so that we may KNOW what is the hope of His calling and what are the riches of His Glory, of His Inheritance IN US! That we may KNOW the exceeding greatness of His Power towards US! If only you could understand the greatness, the riches of Glory, that is coming from Christ and which is beyond everything we can imagine! Paul is praying that the eyes of our understanding will be opened, and this is what I pray for you – that you will see, with your spiritual eyes what our hope is, what are the riches of that Glory which is the inheritance we have IN CHRIST!

I want you to look up, look beyond! I’ve had suffering, I’ve had pain, I’ve lost my parents, my brother, my sister, my wife – but I don’t weep, I look beyond, because I know there is a day of reunion in the Kingdom with those who have passed away before! Our hope transcends, comes above all our earthly panic and pain!

I was a boy in the blitz on London. We used to shelter in the downstairs toilet, it was the most secure place in the house, between the garage and the kitchen. My mother was anxious, praying, but as boys, we didn’t see that, because in those young years I was already seeing the Glory beyond!

Heavenly Father, in this time of trouble, open our eyes to see the future Glory that Christ has prepared for us – in the coming Kingdom!